The K Desktop Environment

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14. Miscellaneous questions

14.1 Why does KDE use Qt?

Qt is a very sophisticated toolkit that provides everything that is needed to build a modern user interface. Qt is written in C++, thus allowing object oriented development affording the necessary efficiency and reuse of code necessary for a project of the enormous size and scope of KDE. In our opinion there is no better toolkit available for Unix and that it would have been a grave mistake to try to build KDE on anything but the best.

Furthermore, all KDE developers agree that it would have not been possible to build KDE in equally short amount of time without the use of Qt.

14.2 Why does KDE not use gtk, xforms, xlib, whatever?

There are a number of toolkits available. To provide a consistent user interface and to keep used resources such as memory to a minimum, KDE can use only one of them. Qt was selected for the reasons mentioned above.

14.3 But Qt isn't free, is it?

That depends on your definition of free. According to our definition it is free, since:

As KDE was, and is, intended to be a noncommercial desktop environment for the X Window system, Qt fits our purposes.

Qt is constantly developed by Troll Tech's dedicated, professional staff. Troll Tech devotes all of its resources to improve Qt on a daily basis. Due to this fact Qt continues to develop at a rate unmatched by any L/GPL'ed toolkit, providing us with the best toolkit available under Unix and providing possible commercial developers for KDE with the quality and support they need.

Troll Tech AS has announced that the Free Edition of Qt, its popular Graphical User Interface toolkit, will be released under an Open Source license. With the new license, programmers will be able to distribute and share any modifications they make to the Qt Free Edition. A draft version of the new license text, dubbed the QPL, is available at http://www.troll.no/qpl/. It will be first applied to the next major release of the Qt Free Edition; version 2.0.

14.4 Why not code a L/GPL'ed Qt clone?

Given the threat that Windows NT poses to Unix we feel a strong sense of urgency and believe it to be important to develop a great desktop for UNIX first, before we might even want to think about rebuilding the _tools_ we are using to build this desktop. Given the fact that our resources are limited KDE itself can not engage in a Qt cloning project at this point. However, if anyone feels that they would prefer a L/GPL'ed version of Qt we would like to encourage you to write such a L/GPL'ed clone. Keep in mind that Qt is only about 80.000 lines of code while KDE is already more than 500.000 lines and the number is rising daily so that a precise count is very difficult. This means writing a Qt clone is definitely feasible and it is only a matter of people who feel strongly enough about a L/GPL'ed version of Qt getting together and starting such a subproject.

Currently, there is a project called Harmony which started to implement a GPL'ed Qt-clone. If you dislike Qt's license, please consider joining this project.

14.5 How do I mount filesystems in KDE?

Actually, this question comes in many guises, and only a very limited portion is really related to KDE. However, it has been asked so many times that I believe it's worthwhile to create an entry for it here. Hopefully, it would cut down unwanted traffic. :-)

The best way is, unfortunately, RTFM. Possible sources of information are man mount, man fstab and KDE Help. Try to do your homework before asking others for help! Especially non-KDE-related homeworks....

I've included below some related questions:

Does Linux support FAT32 Win95/98 partitions?

Yes, as long as your Linux kernel version is at least 2.0.34.

How do I mount my cdrom?

First, you (as root) need to add the following line to /etc/fstab:

/dev/cdrom     /cdrom     iso9660  ro,user,noauto,unhide

Please make sure that you have a soft link from /dev/cdrom to whatever /dev/hd? your cdrom is (assuming you are using an ATAPI cdrom). You should see something like this when you "ls -l /dev/cdrom".

lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root            8 Jul 28 22:21 /dev/cdrom -> /dev/hdb
The above would be done with "ln -s /dev/hdb /dev/cdrom" (as root).

Last but not least, make sure a valid mount point exists for the cdrom to be mounted on, for example:

% ls -la /cdrom
total 2
drwxrwsr-x   2 root     cdrom        1024 Sep 14  1995 ./
drwxr-xr-x  24 root     root         1024 Dec  1 21:00 ../

Okay, concerning the question of how to make a KDE device link to your cdrom, look to KDE Help for the answers.

14.6 Does KDE have terminal emulators with transparent background?

No, but Eterm should work fine using KDE with KWM.

14.7 Is there a way to get various kinds of information about my drive contents: free space, directory size, etc.?

Use the commands du and df from the command prompt. Refer to their man pages for usage details. Or you might want to try kdf and kdiskfree from KDE, or other filemanagers like midnight commander.

14.8 How can I get backspace to work under KDE?

Try running xmodmap -e 'keycode 22 = BackSpace' and see if that fixes it (apps will have to be restarted for that to take effect). You should be able to just stick that in your X startup files like $HOME/.xinitrc.

Or simply upgrade to XFree86-3.3.3.1-1 and above.

Also, concerning the "Backspace"-Bug (Bug number: kb704): the bug is fixed somehow by putting the following line into $HOME/.xinitrc:

xmodmap -  "keysym Delete = BackSpace"

14.9 How do I create icons for non-KDE applications that I can put in the 'K' menu? Where do these icons (or kdelnk) go?

Create using your favorite image manipulator, for example, GIMP, and put them in $KDEDIR/share/icons(/mini) or $HOME/.kde/share/icons(/mini). Furthermore, there is a KDE icon editor lying somewhere....

14.10 What about KDE programs that don't have icons (like KWord)? How do I get them into the menu?

Either use the kmenuedit (K => Panel => Edit menus) or right-click on the kdelnk file and pick Properties => Execute and pick a nice icon.

14.11 Does KDE have a graphical FTP client?

Yes, and it's none other than your favourite filemanager, KFM. You can drag and drop remote files into local directories. There's also a utility called KGet that allows resuming and queueing, but you need to use it in combination with KFM (you can drag-n-drop into KGet but cannot use it to browse FTP servers).

Of course, you aren't required to use FTP clients provided by KDE at all. WxFTP seems to be a very popular alternative.

14.12 How do I exit KDE?

Click on that funny looking X thing above the padlock next to the desktop buttons on the panel to exit KDE. CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE will also do the trick by killing the X server, but its use prevents session management. In addition, there's a logout option from the "K" button, the "Where do you want to go tomorrow?" one. Last but not least, if you right-click on an empty area of the desktop, you will be presented with a menu containing logout as one of the options.

14.13 Is there a program that checks for new mails at my ISP if and only if I'm online?

KOrn and KBiff will both do the job. It doesn't matter if you are connected or not -- if you are not connected, both will just sit there (idling).

14.14 Is it really necessary to upgrade to KDE 1.1?

Not really. But upcoming applications all appear to use 1.1 libraries and QT 1.42. So if you are interested in installing new kde programs and also upgrading existing buggy ones, it would be necessary to go to 1.1. KMail, for example, is almost unusable in 1.0 but pretty decent in 1.1. To conclude, if you want a more polished environment, an increase in speed and the number of features, then you should upgrade now!

14.15 How do I copy and paste in KDE?

The simplest method is to use your mouse:

  1. highlight the text you want to copy by holding down the left button.
  2. go to the destination area; depending on your configuration, you might need to click it using the left button to give it focus.
  3. click the middle mouse button to paste. If you have a two button mouse and are emulating a three button mouse, push both buttons simultaneously.

14.16 How do I convert the default Red Hat menus into a menu on the K-Menu?

Click on that 'K' and run System->Appfinder.

14.17 Why isn't kdm or klock working in Redhat?

Please check whether you have the /etc/pam.d/kde file. If it doesn't exist, create one by copying (or making a symlink) the xdm file to kde.

However, kdebase-1.1pre2 is supposed to make a symbolic link from /etc/pam.d/xdm to /etc/pam.d/kde, if it does not exist.

There are reports that the uninstall scripts for kde-1.1pre1 "rh5x" RPMs interfere with the post-install scripts of kde-1.1pre2 "rh5x" RPMs.

If you have problems, force a reinstall:

rpm -Uvh --force kdesupport-1.1pre2-1rh5x.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh --force kdelibs-1.1pre2-1rh5x.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh --force kdebase-1.1-pre2-1rh5x.i386.rpm

14.18 What is CVS?

It is an acronym for Concurrent Versions System. It is a version control system and is based on RCS (Revision Control System), but offers more functionality. It is used to maintain source code under development. It will keep multiple versions of things (handy if you broke something and have to back up and get a clean old version), and allows people remote access over the Net to pick up the latest source code and even to check in new stuff if they have permission. It is also open source (you pay for support if you want it), and since it is free it is the system of choice for people writing more free products, such as KDE.

14.19 Does KDE support dual screen?

You need to have the following:

  1. a multi-headed X server (e.g. MertroX)
  2. a window manager that understands a multi-headed display (e.g. Window Maker)

AFAIK, KWM can't do what you want (yet).

14.20 How do I check which version of KDE I'm using?

Fire up your KDE Control Center. If there's no mention of KDE's version number, then it must be 1.0.

Another clear difference is the 'K' on the panel. In 1.0 it's a black-and-white 3D K, while in 1.1 it's a white K on top of a wheel.

Or if you have installed KDE from RPMs try:

$ rpm -qa  | grep kde
kdesupport-1.1pre2-2rh5x
kdeadmin-1.1pre2-1rh5x
kdelibs-1.1pre2-1rh5x
kdegraphics-1.1pre2-1rh5x
kdemultimedia-1.1pre2-1rh5x
kdetoys-1.1pre2-1rh5x
kdegames-1.1pre2-1rh5x
kdeutils-1.1pre2-1rh5x
kdebase-1.1pre2-1rh5x
so my current version is 1.1pre2.

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